Jess

London: Smith, Elder, & Co, 1887. First Edition. Fine. 8vo. 7 1/4 x 4 3/4 (184 x 120 mm); viii, 336. Handsomely bound in polished red calf by Bayntun (stamp on first endpaper), gilt fillets on covers, decorations to edges and turn-ins, 5 raised bands, gilt decorations in compartments, with title on green and blue morocco labels, marbled endpapers; original red cloth covers bound in; a.e.g. Very occasional spotting, else pages clean and fresh and binding tight and square.
FOYLE COPY copy with gilt-stamped red roan Wm. A. Foyle Beeleigh Abbey label to front pastedown

[McKay 6]. A beautifully bound volume from the distinguished library of bibliophile and bookseller William A. Foyle. This novel, set in South Africa, is the fifth work of fiction by Sir Henry Rider Haggard KBE (1856-1925), know for his adventure fiction romances set in exotic locations, and sometimes considered the father of the Lost World genre. Jess, like several of his other works including King Solomon's Mines and She, were repeatedly adapted for the screen. Jess was published serially in "The Cornhill Magazine" in London between May 1886 and April 1887.

WILLIAM A. FOYLE (1885-1963) was one of the leading London booksellers of the 20th century. He opened his first bookshop with his brother Gilbert in 1903 and by the late 1920s their bookstore in Charing Cross Road held a stock of four million volumes on over thirty miles of bookshelves. His vision for the business was a bookshop for the world - for every one from any station in life - "The People's Bookshop", and it became a meeting place for famous writers and distinguished figures, along with members of the public. In the early 1940s Foyle bought Beeleigh Abbey, a 12th-century monastery in Essex and formed one of the largest English private libraries of the 20th century. The library was sold at auction by Christie's in July 2000. The three-day sale realized some £12,000,000, making it the single most valuable collection of books ever to be sold at auction in Britain or Europe.